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Polly frowned. ‘So why was I chosen?’
Raul lifted a broad shoulder in a slight fatalistic shrug that was very Latin. ‘I liked you. I didn’t want to have a baby with a woman I couldn’t even like.’
‘I was a really bad choice,’ Polly muttered ruefully. ‘Now I wish you’d listened to the psychologist.’
Raul vented a rather grim laugh. ‘I never listen to what I don’t want to hear. People who work for me know that, and they like to please me. That’s why you were fed lies to persuade you into signing the contract. A very junior lawyer got smart and set you up. He didn’t tell his boss what he’d done until after you’d signed. He expected an accolade for his ingenuity but instead he got fired.’
‘Did he?’ Polly showed her surprise.
‘Sí...’ Raul’s mouth tightened. ‘But my lawyer saw no reason to tell me what had happened. He had no idea that either of us would ever be in a position to find out.’
Polly ate the ice cream, lashes lowering as she savoured each cool, delicious spoonful. The seconds ticked by. Raul watched her. She was aware of his intent scrutiny, curiously satisfied by the attention, but extremely nervous of it too, as if she was a mouse with a hawk circling overhead. It was so quiet, so very quiet at that hour of the night, no distant buzzing bells, no quick-moving feet in the corridor outside.
And then Polly stiffened, a muffled little sound of discomfort escaping her as the baby chose that moment to give her an athletic kick.
Raul leant forward. ‘Que...what is it?’ he demanded anxiously.
‘The baby. It’s always liveliest at night.’ She met the question in his eyes and flushed, reaching a sudden decision. Setting down the ice cream, she pushed the bedding back the few necessary inches, knowing that she was perfectly decently covered in her cotton nightie but still feeling horrendously shy.
Raul drew closer and rested his palm very lightly on her stomach. As he felt the movement beneath his fingers, a look of wonder filled his dark, shimmering gaze and he smiled with sudden quick brilliance. ‘That’s amazing,’ he breathed. ‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?’
‘Mr Bevan offered to tell me but I didn’t want to know,’ Polly admitted unevenly, deeply unsettled by that instant of intimate sharing but undeniably touched by his fascination. ‘I like surprises better.’
Raul slowly removed his palm and tugged the sheet back into place. His hands weren’t quite steady. Noting that, she wondered why. She could still feel the cool touch of his hand like a burning imprint on her own flesh. He was so close she could hardly breathe, her own awareness of him so pronounced it was impossible to fight. At best, she knew she could only hope to conceal her reaction, but though she was desperate to think of something to say to distract him her mind was suddenly a blank.
‘You can be incredibly sweet...’ Raul remarked, half under his breath.
Her intent gaze roamed over him, lingering helplessly on the glossy luxuriance of his black hair, the hard, clean line of his high cheekbones and the dark roughening of his jawline that suggested a need to shave twice a day. Reaching the wide, passionate curve of his mouth, she wondered as she had wondered so often before what he tasted like. Then, wildly flustered by that disturbing thought, her eyes lifted, full of confusion, and the dark golden lure of his gaze entrapped and held her in thrall.
‘And incredibly tempting,’ Raul confided huskily as he brought his sensual mouth very slowly down on hers.
She could have pulled back with ease; he gave her every opportunity. But at the first touch of his lips on hers she dissolved into a hot, melting pool of acquiescence. With a muffled groan, he closed his hand into the tumbling fall of her hair to steady himself and let his tongue stab deep into the tender interior of her mouth. And the whole tenor of the kiss changed.
Excitement so intense it burned flamed instantly through her, bringing her alive with a sudden shocking vitality that made her screamingly aware of every inch of her own humming body. And as soon as it began she ached for more, lacing desperate fingers into the silky thickness of his hair, palms sliding down then to curve over to his cheekbones. Only at some dim, distant, uncaring level was she conscious of the buzzing, irritating sound somewhere close by.
Raul released her with a stifled expletive in Spanish and sprang off the bed. With dazed eyes, Polly watched him pull out a mobile phone. And in the deep silence she heard the high-pitched vibration of a woman’s voice before he put the phone to his ear.
‘Dios...I’ll be down in a moment,’ Raul murmured curtly, and, switching the phone off, he dug it back into his pocket.
‘I’m sorry but I have to go. I have someone waiting in the car.’ He raked restive fingers through his now thoroughly tousled black hair, glittering golden eyes screened from her searching scrutiny, mouth compressed into a ferocious line. ‘I’ll see you soon. Buenas noches.’
The instant he left the room, Polly thrust back the bedding and scrambled awkwardly out of bed. She flew over to the window which overlooked the front entrance and pulled back the curtain. She saw the limo...and she saw the beautiful blonde in her sleek, short crimson dress pacing beside it. Then she watched the blonde arrange herself in a studied pose against the side of the luxury car so that she looked like a glamorous model at an automobile show.
Polly rushed back across the room to douse the lamp and then returned to the window. Raul emerged from the clinic. The blonde threw herself exuberantly into his arms Polly’s nerveless fingers dropped from the curtain. She reeled back against the cold wall and closed her arms round her trembling body, feeling sick and dizzy and utterly disgusted with herself.
Oh, dear heaven, why hadn’t she slapped his face for him? Why, oh, why had she allowed him to kiss her? Feeling horribly humiliated and raw, she got back into bed with none of the adrenalin-charged speed with which she had vacated it. Tonight Raul had been out with his latest blonde. Now they were either moving on to some nightclub or heading for a far more intimate setting. She could barely credit that Raul had called in to see her in the middle of a date with another woman, as relaxed and unhurried as if he’d had all the time in the world to spend with her.
Polly felt murderous. She could still see the ice cream tub glimmering in the darkness. Gosh, weren’t you a push-over? a sarcastic little inner voice gibed. Easily impressed, pitifully vulnerable. Her defences hadn’t stood a chance with Raul in a more approachable mood. And he hadn’t even kissed her because he was attracted to her—oh, no. Nothing so simple and nothing less flattering than the true explanation she suspected.
He had felt the baby move. That had been a disturbingly intimate and emotional experience for them both. For the first time they had crossed the barriers of that contract and actually shared something that related to the baby. And Raul was a very physical male who had, in the heat of the moment, reacted in an inappropriately physical way. The constraint of his abrupt departure had revealed his unease with that development. She was convinced he wouldn’t ever let anything like that happen between them again.
Yet for so long Polly had ached for Raul to kiss her, and that passionate kiss had outmatched her every naive expectation. Without ever touching her, Raul had taught her to crave him like a dangerous drug. Now she despised herself and felt all the shame of her own wantonly eager response. She did hate him now, she told herself vehemently. Technically she might still be a virgin, but she wasn’t such an idiot that she didn’t know that sexual feelings could both tempt and confuse. Her response had had nothing to do with love or intelligence.
She had stopped loving Raul the same day that she’d discovered how he had been deceiving her in Vermont. But the complexity of their current relationship was plunging her into increasing turmoil. For what relationship did they have? She wasn’t his lover but she was expecting his baby, and she couldn’t even claim that they were friends, could she...?
A magnificent floral arrangement arrived from Raul the next day. Polly asked the maid to pass it on to one of the other patients. She didn’t want to be reminded of Raul every time she looked across the room.
He phoned in the afternoon. ‘How are you?’
